What Happened Here (2011) | Stream

WHAT HAPPEND HERE 

A road movie/personal reflection on the tragedy of Leon Trotsky, a major figure in the 1905 and 1917 Russian Revolutions. Nilsson and his cinematographer, Mickey Freeman, travel to the Ukraine in search of the vanished town of Koloniya Gromokely, Trotsky's birthplace. On to Odessa, where Trotsky went to school and began his life as a revolutionary in the struggle for the rights of working people, they find people who remember his family and places where he organized. Nilsson then travels to the Golan Heights to interview the last survivor of the World War Il Nazi Einsatzgruppen massacre of the Jewish population of Koloniya Gromokely. A spectacular score by Daniel David Feinsmith gives the film another level of tragic witness.

USA Premiere: Mill Valley Film Festival, 2012

World Premiere: Tel Aviv Film Festival, 2012

"A film about the slipperiness of what we usually call history with a style more akin to Chris Marker’s work than anything that might air on PBS. "History may rule the academy," says Nilsson in the film, "but opinion rules the world." - Michael McWay, cineSOURCE, Apr 26, 2012

A quote from Aryeh Levin, Israeli ambassador to the USSR (1991-92):

"This film belongs in the ranks of Claude Lanzmann's film Shoah".

Written and Directed by:

• Rob Nilsson

Featuring:

• Mikhael Derenkovski

• Raisa Derenkovski

• Nikolay Petrovich Poskalnyuk

Cinematography By:

• Mickey Freeman

Editing By:

• Arthur Vibert

• Melody C. Miller

• Joel Simone

Music By:

• Daniel Feinsmith

Producers:

• Victoria Yakubov

• Olga Zhurzhenko

• Nimrod Zin

• Rob Nilsson

Associate Producers:

• Michelle Anton Allen

• Eugene Zykov

Executive Producers:

• David and Carol Richards

Okunrin Meta David Schickele